Bob Dylan's Renaldo and Clara To Be Finally Released | Literary Kicks Bob Dylan's Renaldo and Clara To Be Finally Released Levi Asher • January 17th, 2011 Summer Of Love Dylanologists rejoice! I've heard from a semi-reliable source that Renaldo and Clara, a much-discussed and little-seen 1978 epic film by Bob Dylan, will soon be finally released on DVD. This astounding, rich and often frustrating movie represented one of the most dramatic episodes in Bob Dylan's long career. An ambitious, intentionally difficult postmodern art film, Renaldo and Clara was panned by critics for being pretentious, incomprehensible and painfully long (all of these things are true). Released in the early years of the punk-rock/new-wave era, the film's windy self-indulgence revealed Dylan as completely out of step with his times. Stung by the criticism, Dylan has refused to release the film ever since. It has not shown in theatres since the 1970s, and has never been officially released on VHS or DVD. But this movie is a masterpiece in spite of its faults, or perhaps because of them.

Conceived by Dylan as an early experiment in cinema verite (a genre now typically known as "reality tv"), Renaldo and Clara tells a single story but deliberately confuses the identities of all the characters, several of which are played by Dylan, his former lover Joan Baez or his then-wife Sara Dylan. Bob Neuwirth, T. Bone Burnette, Ronee Blakely, Mick Ronson, Scarlet Rivera, Ronnie Hawkins, Rob Stoner and countless other friends come along for the ride. Various improvised or real-life scenes introduce themes of love, politics and the meaning of America, and by the end none of the themes are easily resolved. The film quality is erratic, the direction is often unclear, and the acting is often clumsy (guitarist Mick Ronson is particularly wooden, and Dylan is no Brando himself) However, stirring scenes and images emerge. Most importantly, the narrative scenes are intercut with stunning complete performances of great songs like Tangled Up In Blue, It Ain't Me Babe, Never Let Me Go, When I Paint My Masterpiece and One More Cup Of Coffee.

The film features Dylan in a peak moment of live performance with the Rolling Thunder Revue (the largest and, in my opinion, most exciting band he ever played with). The film's literary credentials are through the roof. It's co-written by Sam Shepard, includes a powerful poetry performance by Anne Waldman, and features many beguiling scenes with Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, who light up the screen whenever they appear. This movie is also the only close glimpse curious Dylan fans will ever get of Sara Dylan, the songwriter's greatest muse (Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands) and the mother of his older children. I've seen Renaldo and Clara several times, but always on either a fuzzy bootleg VHS recording or, more recently, in broken segments on YouTube. In either case, the viewing experience is not great (it pretty much looks like the image at the top of this page, which show Sara and Bob as Clara and Renaldo). I'm looking forward to seeing it in high quality video for the first time, and hearing the killer live music in high quality audio. Maybe this time I'll even be able to understand more of the story.

It's not clear whether Dylan has refused to release this film since the 1970s only to spite the critics or for other reasons. The crash-landing of Renaldo and Clara coincided with Dylan and Sara's divorce, after which the always enigmatic folk-rocker released a brilliant, Kafkaesque album called Street-Legal, then disappeared for several months and reemerged as a born-again Christian. Renaldo and Clara, though an artistic failure in several ways, captures the heat of an artist in a creative frenzy. It probably also captures something about the 1970s as a whole. My old friends at the once-thriving rec.music.dylan Usenet newsgroup may also remember that I once posted an extensive synopsis of the film there (this was one of the very first things I wrote online). Through maintaining this piece over the years, I've been made aware of how many hard-core or amateur Dylanologists around the world have been eagerly awaiting this film. Sean Wilentz's recent book Bob Dylan in America has also helped to pique interest (Wilentz reveals, among other things, that the film was almost certainly inspired by a French film called Children of Paradise, directed by Marcel Carne).

I'm really glad that Bob Dylan's creative team has decided to give this undeniably important movie its proper official release, though I haven't yet heard word when it will happen. 30 Responses to "Bob Dylan's Renaldo and Clara To Be Finally Released " by Steve Plonk on The Genius of David Bowie, in 5 Songs by Levi Asher Monday, January 11, 2016 09:14 am Five lesser-known epic songs from the complete catalog of David Bowie show the depth and brilliance of his craftsmanship and musical/lyrical vision. Daevid Allen of Gong by Levi Asher Saturday, February 7, 2015 09:51 am Daevid Allen, the brilliant jazz-rock mastermind of Soft Machine, Gong, New York Gong and Planet Gong, releases a public statement about his fatal cancer.

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Sixteen Songs About a Ship of Fools by Levi Asher Sunday, March 29, 2015 09:09 am The image of the "Ship of Fools" has appeared in several books, a movie, and sixteen songs by artists like the Doors, Grateful Dead, John Cale, Robert Plant, Soul Asylum, Sarah Brightman, Bob Seger, the Scorpions, Echo and the Bunnymen ... by Levi Asher Monday, April 8, 2013 11:14 pm Levi Asher reviews Richard Hell's new memoir, "I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp". The Great Lost Folk Memoir: The Mayor of MacDougal Street by Dave Van Ronk by Levi Asher Tuesday, January 7, 2014 06:56 pm This memoir of a great but little-known Greenwich Village blues/folk singer helped to inspire the Coen Brothers' 'Inside Llewyn Davis'.

When Bob Dylan Rambles Into Town by Levi Asher Wednesday, November 26, 2014 09:50 am Bob Dylan and his traveling band delivers a powerful performance at Constitution Hall in Washington DC on November 25, 2014. View All Photos (1) Movie Info Bob Dylan made this concert film that chronicles a 1975/1976 performance of his Rolling Thunder Revue. In between songs he, his wife Sara Dylan, along with Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, and other counterculture figures perform philosophically based improvisational pieces. During the skits, Dylan plays the ambiguous Renaldo, while Ronnie Hawkins and Ronee Blakely play Dylan and his wife.

Songs include "Isis, I Want You," "It Ain't Me Babe," "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," "Hurricane," "Romance in Durango," "One Too Many Mornings," "One More Cup of Coffee," "Sara," "Patty's Gone to Laredo," "Just Like a Woman," "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowland," "When I Paint My Masterpiece," (Bob Dylan), "Chestnut Mare" (Roger McGuinn), "Diamonds and Rust" (Joan Baez), "Suzanne" (Leonard Cohen), "Need a New Sun Rising" (Ronee Blakely), "Salt Pork West Virginia" (Jack Elliott), "Kaddish" (Allen Ginsberg), "Cucurrucucu Paloma" (Tomas Mendez), and "Time of the Preacher" (Willie Nelson).

Rating: 'Renaldo and Clara' is Bob Dylan's 4 Hour Fever Dream - Nerve Nerve • Tweet Bob Dylan’s epic 1978 film Renaldo and Clara—a four-hour fever dream of concert footage, documentary, narrative pieces co-written by Sam Shepard—is nearly as legendary as the Rolling Thunder Revue concert tour that fueled it, excessive in every way, doomed by critical consensus as an impossible-to-sit-through failure. I’d always been a little bit afraid to watch it, honestly. It was universally panned, receiving the worst reviews of Dylan’s career, and that’s saying something. Dylan never officially released it, and after a few sporadic screenings around the world, he seemed to do his best to make the film disappear altogether. But, thanks to the internet, I stumbled across a stream of pretty decent quality. So I popped a bottle of champagne, sat down, and clicked play, expecting the worst. And to be fair, twenty minutes in, I was already baffled. The camera work was shaky, the dialogue mumbled, Dylan’s band wearing masks and making jokes I couldn’t seem to get.

An extended scene of singer David Blue playing pinball in front of a swimming pool, talking about the folk scene at the Gaslight. So far, so weird. But then something amazing happened. Cue Bob Dylan in the first of a series of remarkable hats, kissing a woman while playing guitar, in what seems to be the back room of a mechanic’s garage, while the mustachioed mechanic watches. “You running from the law?” the mechanic asks. “I am the law,” says Dylan. And we’re off. What follows is a series of bizarre vignettes and rock and roll, rife with religious imagery, angels strumming violins, a multitude of Christ statues, and Joan Baez playing some sort of temptress goddess of love. Scenes of Ronnie Hawkins playing Dylan, Dylan playing Dylan, no one playing Dylan, Dylan playing an outlaw named Renaldo, chasing the Woman in White, who is played alternately by Joan Baez, Bob’s then-wife Sara Dylan, and hell, probably some other women too, I lost count.

And then, out of nowhere, we get Mick Ronson and Allen Ginsberg leading a meditative chant of “Yeah yeah yeah go go baby, bop shoo wop, doo wah diddy!” The narrative might be incomprehensible, but the flow isn’t, and the images are right on point. This is a film to get lost in, a film to explore with joy and gratitude. It’s an adventure movie, Bob Dylan as a pre-Indiana Jones, shuffled through the French New Wave and written by Beat Poets. Where the film truly shines is in the live performances. From “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” to “Romance In Durango,” the music absolutely slays. Regardless of their acting skill, the Rolling Thunder Revue is one of the wildest, greatest rock and roll bands ever assembled, from Scarlet Rivera’s careening violin, Rob Stoner’s visceral backing hollers, a remarkable five genius guitar players. Nothing has sounded like it before or sense. The version of “Isis” in particular is pure fire, Bob Dylan in white face paint, looking like a re-animated zombie scarecrow, screaming out a tale of warning, wonder and woe, a gypsy’s curse.

Other moments, remarkable in their grace: Dylan and Sara walking in the snow. Joan Baez, grinning, dancing her ass off. Ginsberg reading a devastating “Kaddish,” getting prayed over, having his beard shaved. The gnarliest version of “House of the Rising Sun” ever. Dylan and Ginsberg, standing over Jack Kerouac’s grave, discussing lovely remarkable Jack. “What graves have you seen?” Ginsberg asks. “Victor Hugo’s grave,” says Dylan. I don’t know. It’s perfect. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not any Bob Dylan expert, I’ve never written a scholarly article about him . But what I am—if you haven’t guessed already—is a massive fan. Not much music has ever meant more to me than his, and particularly that 1971-81 run (yes, I’m including the Christian stuff; I think Shot of Love is one of the greatest albums of all time, but that’s for another article).

Then, for me, Renaldo and Clara is an absolute joy, a journey through the wild dreamworld mythology of one of my favorite artists of all time, a land where poets and gods and bandits go stalking down the road, seeking after your soul. I’m grateful for all two hundred thirty-two bizarre, wonderful, frustrating minutes. Also Harry Dean Stanton and Joan Baez make out while Dylan rides around on a horse. That’s pretty cool too. Renaldo and Clara Reviews & Ratings - IMDb IMDb 21 out of 25 people found the following review useful: Underrated and should be re-released from La Jolla, CA 27 November 2001 Bob Dylan has never made it as an actor. Nothing proves this better than his role as Billy Parker in "Hearts of Fire" (1987). Even his minor role as "Alias" in Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973) was lackluster. The song he wrote for the film, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," however, has survived as an anthem. But "Renaldo & Clara" is a very different sort of film.

It runs nearly 4 hours and chronicles a concert tour, "The Rolling Thunder Revue." It is filled with interesting people, good music and impromptu dialogue. Even with so much situational dialogue, Dylan shared writing credits with the distinguished playwright Sam Shepard. Perhaps the thing that makes it such a valuable cinematic document is that it bridges the gap in American cultural history between the "Beat Generation" and the emerging post-modern movement. Critics panned the film at the time of its release, probably because they did not understand that were standing at the convergence of two great social tides. What they saw as an overly long movie without the benefit of tight plotting was really the melding of "beat" stream-of-consciousness and Dylan's own unique post-modern artistic sensibilities. Critics could only compare it to some lengthy epic from India because they had no other frame of reference at the time. In the film, the troupe re-enacts an old "true-life love triangle" (Joan Baez and Sara Dylan) and, with Allen Ginsberg, pays homage at the grave of Jack Kerouac. There are visits with Rueben "Hurricane" Carter in his jail cell and off-stage antics.

It has many whimsical moments, plenty of hard-driving rock and roll and yes, it veers off the track on several occasions, but even those moments are not without their poetry. Dylan himself takes directorial credit, and while he was surely the man in control of his vision, one must look to the person credited as Assistant Director for the more mundane aspects. This man was Jacques Levy, a former New York City psychologist who had dabbled on Broadway and whose only other screen directorial credit up to that time was for "Oh! Calcutta!" (1972), the nostalgic strip show. Peter McGuinn of the Byrds introduced Dylan and Levy in 1969. Interestingly, Levy and Dylan co-wrote all but two of the songs on Dylan's 1976 album "Desire," including "Hurricane," "Isis," "Joey," "Romance in Durango" and others which appear on the film soundtrack. Levy now teaches theater at Colgate University. However, at the time the film was made, Levy probably could not be considered to have mastery as a director.

Nor could claims of mastery be made by cinematographer and film editor Howard Alk, whose career peaked with this film. The producer was Mel Howard, and his only other credit as a producer at the time was "Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx" (1970). The point to mentioning all this is that Dylan was not surrounded by an over-abundance of talent when he made the film, other than the performers with him on the screen. It is testimony to Dylan's own talent that his vision was realized to any degree. It is said that Dylan was unhappy with D.A. Pennebaker's documentary of his 1965 UK tour, "Dont Look Back," (also featuring Baez, and even Allen Ginsberg in the background of the famous "Subterranean Homesick Blues" que card scene) because he didn't get a cut of the financial action. Yet, "Renaldo and Clara" owes something to Pennebaker's work. It has the same freshness, style and spontaneity, though it is darker and more original. "Renaldo and Clara" is a complex film. It's a concert tour film, a love story, a dues-paying to artistic influences.

But simply because it is long and complex does not mean it is without its many joys. If Fellini had signed his name to this cinematic work of art, it might have been considered a masterpiece. Was the above review useful to you? 15 out of 16 people found the following review useful: A sometimes irritating and sometimes profound meditation from England 15 April 2000 At over four hours and consisting of a lot of improvised and apparently self-referential scenes, this could and indeed has irritated many viewers. But if one stays with it and takes it as it comes (Dylan himself has recommended that one watches it doped), the film is an extraordinary meditation on the nature of self, performance, show biz and life. At its heart, the film seems to me to be saying that everything is show business (love, politics, poetry) or perhaps that show business (represented by a cheesy club act) is as valid a life choice as any of the more profound things portrayed. For all his supposedly radical support for Rubin Carter, the film suggests that the boxer is just as much a performer as anyone else.

The film contains some moving sequences, not least the wonderful one in which Alan Ginsberg performs Kaddish before a group of oldsters. And not least, the concert footage of Dylan is magnificent - Isis being a stand-out. Which brings me back to the movie's theme: here is a performer whose name is not really Bob Dylan playing a performer who is called Renaldo performing a song about marriage but not marriage to his wife Sara (who plays Clara in the film) but marriage to the ancient Egyptian Goddess Isis - which implies that the singer really is Osiris, God of the underworld. But it's just this kid Robert Zimmerman! What is the real truth? This is the sort of heady trip the film offers. Put up with the irritating self-indulgence of much of this,and the enormous length, and there are great rewards. Re-issue it, Bob! Was the above review useful to you? 12 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Select Masks, Assemble Lives 26 April 2005 These days most everything is inherently cinematic: poetry, music, literature. That's a good thing if you understand how cinema works and can escape its control when needed.

One technique is to retreat to non-cinematic art, to surf the various pathways therein and then come back to the moving image from the outside. This film, if you can find the five hour version, can provide one such exercise. Dylan builds his songs around images, but they are not images from film or film-influenced phrases. His images are what appears in dreams, originating in real life and sliced and diced by drugs. (Incidentally, the period of this film marks the transition from active tripping of various kinds to passive by his "acceptance" of fundamentalism another drug.) His method has always been to eschew a plan, to avoid premeditated structure, to abandon great themes. Instead, he just starts, waits for images and ideas to appear and then arranges them on the table. His art is a combination of selection and composition. The selection is a matter of discarding everything that seems to be simple. That automatically puts him in the world of the Tambourine Man, where he has been in various guises for decades. The matter of composition is something else. He just trusts how they appear. Since they all come from one mind, and that mind is coherent and somewhat interesting, they hang together.

He doesn't know how they do and has given up questioning, except for a brief period of examining Kabbalah. That's how he does it with his music, and it works to judge from his audience. He also does it with his prose rambles. This works less well; the act of juxtaposing elements in his songs leverages the vocabulary of rhythmic associations he pretty much invented. But he has no equivalent to serve his writing projects, so most of them come across as sophomoric. Same with this film. He just started. But images in film (at least films like this) have to come from things that are presented in the real world. He relies on some friends to help create and select the images/ scenes/sequences. Ginsberg is an anchor who does understand the rhythms of poetry where Bob does not, but he is as ignorant as Bob concerning film. Another friend is Sam Shepard who is credited as co-writer. During this time, he was working with Terence Malick on another project which is about the same problem of selection. Shepard and Malick for that matter have a coherent theory of "selection" that they can use in conceiving their projects and setting the basic tone.

We can see much of that here; it all relates to folding of persons into characters that are assignable to other bodies. Thus we have many "actors" playing more than one role; roles that are assigned to more than one actor; scenes that are copied from real life; lives that are generated from scenes (bordello vignettes, Indian cosmologies, Black injustices, beat poems...) That's the selection half and it is interesting as all getout. The composition half is pure dreck. Dylan trusts his intuitions as he always does. But these pieces don't all come from the inner spinning of a whole mind like Kieslowski's or Tarkovsky's. They come from all over and he stitches them together as if they did actually come from his visions. But they didn't so it has no coherent being. He tries to use songs, his and others, as glue. Some of these are enjoyable by themselves but they sure don't help assemble a cinematic being. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements. Was the above review useful to you? 9 out of 13 people found the following review useful: Does not seem like a professional job, but sure worth seeing. from S.

Paulo, Brazil 4 November 2005 The impression I had after seeing this film, was that Bob Dylan made a film thinking it would be easier than what it turned out to be. As Dylan is my favorite musician, poet, singer, whatever... I enjoyed every minute of the film. Sometimes you have the feeling that the result is the same as if an amateur would take a digital camera on the road to film the concerts and the musicians, and also try to put in a bit of philosophy. Ronnie Hawkins and Ronee Blackley pretend to be Dylan and wife, and they have a great fight. Sara Dylan is Clara and Bob is Renaldo, and Dylan is divided between Sara and Joan Baez. Allen Ginsberg joins them on the trip and recites some poetry, goes together with Bob to visit Jack Kerouac's grave, and also lets a woman read his hand. "You had two marriages" she says to him. "Yes, kind of.." he replies. There is a musician who keeps saying to his girlfriend "I won't let you come in between me and my music".

Dylan is great when he sings "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" changing the melody, and also "Tangled up in Blue". Joan Baez is charming, looks beautiful and has quite a voice. She sings "Blowin in the Wind" with Bob. They all go to visit Rubin Carter in jail and many people are interviewed on the street about their opinion of what happened to Carter. There is no doubt that somebody like Martin Scorcese could have done better, but still, just to be able to be together with this fantastic group for a couple of hours is worth seeing this film. Was the above review useful to you? 4 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Bobby,Joanie and the jack of all trades. Author: dbdumonteil 20 April 2007 When it was theatrically released in most of Europa,BOb Dylan's work was boiled down to a 100 min version.I had to wait almost thirty years to see the complete movie (about 4 hours).Was it worth the wait?

The performances make me inclined to think that it was.Virtually all the songs Dylan performs are great live moments,and it would be wise to release (I think it has already been done)an only-songs DVD:Wearing a mask,or with his white make-up,Dylan's sings his songs as if "a life were depending on them " (and in the case of "Hurricane" it is true!):all the songs from the "desire" album are superior to the studio tracks:"Isis", "one more cup of coffee" and "romance in Durango" are almost spooky.The "blood on the tracks" material triumphs too: "tangled up is blue " will blow your mind and a strange "if you see her say hello" accompanied on piano which is heard when Dylan and Baez walk across the snow is so "new" I did not recognize the song at first."A hard rain 's gonna fall becomes a heavy metal stomp which makes the original 1963 version sound like a demo.There's also a countrified "I want you" (not as stunning,perhaps ,as the slow Budokan version),a moving "Sarah" (Lowndes)and a rare live

 version (heard as background)of "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands " .

We are also treated to the delights of the duets.I'm not the kind of people to tell you that Baez "is holding Bob back and makes him a robot on a leash":when they sing together ,I'm on cloud nine Johnny Ace's "never let me go" is brilliant and a very long version of "the water is wide" is heard during one of the numerous scenes of the Renaldo/Clara/Woman in White triangle. Baez's "Diamonds and rust" is admirable but unfortunately it is cut ,which is a shame!Roger McGuinn gives a riveting instrumental version of his Byrds classic "Eight Miles High" with Baez's doing the frug to it and then leads the band into a blistering version of "Chesnut mare" another Byrds classic.

I would not go as far as to write that the non-musical sequences were as magical as the others.David Blue playing pinball and remembering the Village days is not really absorbing (although he mentions Phil Ochs -who could have been part of the Rolling Thunder Review);the love triangle deals with the three involved persons's private lives and I do not think it will interest the younger generation who almost knows nothing about their love affairs;outside of the handful of artists I've mentioned,the other musical sequences are average-to-poor. One can save the scenes on the street concerning Rubin Carter and the one when Ginsberg and Dylan visit Jack Kerouac's grave .Even more disturbing is this other sequence in a graveyard where the two men speak of Jesus and the Way of the Cross.This and "people get ready " ("there's no room for the hopeless sinner") might explain Dylan's sudden (and short-lived) conversion to Christianity in the late seventies. "Renaldo and Clara" is a hotchpotch ;it's hard to imagine a non Dylan buff sitting through these four hours. Like this?

Try this: "Hard Rain" a 1976 concert:they wrote that the Rolling Thunder Review was moribund at the time but don't you believe them!"Hard rain" is one -hour long and there is never a dull moment !(most of the material was released on the eponymous album) Was the above review useful to you? 5 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Strange Renaldo and Clara (1978) 235 min., Theatrical cut * 1/2 (out of 4) Bob Dylan plays Renaldo, his real life wife Sara plays Clara and Joan Baez, Dylan's long-time mistress, plays The Woman in White. This 1978 film features Dylan as director and it hit theaters with a huge bomb as critics tore it apart, fans didn't show up to see it and some theater owners refused to play it. Dylan later edited the film down to 122-minutes, which featured mostly concert stuff, but this version hasn't been seen since the original release.

All of this was filmed during Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue, which in my opinion featured Dylan's at his best and only ranking second behind the legendary 1966 tour. The gimmick of this tour was that Dylan, along with Baez, Jack Elliott, Bob Neuwirth and various others would tour around the country without announcing any dates. Instead, they'd simply have their tour bus stop and the concert would take place within the matter of days, if not on that day itself. As far as a story goes, it's all over the place. We have the central story of Renaldo and Clara and the husband's affair with The Lady in White, which is clearly drawn off Dylan's own marital issues. We also have Ronnie Hawkins playing Bob Dylan with Ronne Blakley playing his wife with these segments centering on the price of being a legend. We also have other wide range of events with coverage of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter taking some of the running time, which this tour, with Dylan's song "Hurricane", was trying to bring awareness to his case. I'm a die-hard Dylan fan but the first hour of this film is among the worst stuff ever put to film.

The movie is downright self indulgent, self centered and very poorly directed. However, with that said, something happens during the later part of the film, which for about an hour, makes it somewhat entertaining. It's really hard to absolutely trash this film because the concert footage is very special and feature some great tracks. Dylan, appearing in whiteface, does some of his greatest stuff on this tour and that features the greatest versions of "It Ain't Me Babe" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall". Both of these classic folk tunes are given the "rock-a-billy" treatment and I've yet to hear better versions. Dylan also plays more recent turns including a blazing version of "Iris", a heartbreaking version of "Sara" and the opening number "When I Paint My Masterpiece". You also have a very heartfelt and deeply emotional performance of "Just Like a Woman" and a great country version of "I Want You". Dylan fans will also be interested in a brief clip of "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands", which is the only known performance of this song, although it can only be heard briefly in the background.

We also get a cover of "House of the Rising Sun" and duets with Baez on "Blowin' in the Wind" and "I Shall Be Released". Even with the great music, for the most part this film is a total washout as we're watching home movies for nearly four hours. There's no camera-work to speak of as the camera is simply all over the place and there's never any clear focus or shots set up. It appears everything was done with one take and the ugliness of the picture really comes through. However, I will add, that I've never seen a film like this so perhaps that's another positive for the film. There are countless scenes that come out of no where and really mean nothing including a very long sequence with Indians fighting over equal rights. We also get countless scenes of David Blue talking about the old days of the Village where Dylan and various others got their start. There are some interesting insights here but the footage just keeps going and going to the point where it gets boring.

There's also footage with Rubin "Hurricane" Carter that is pretty interesting as we see him in jail, although none of the concert footage of Dylan performing at the prison is included (only news footage is currently available via bootlegs). There's some other nice stuff including the stage being set up, Dylan before and after shows as well as other sequences where we get to see Dylan being Dylan but I doubt anyone, outside of major fans, are going to sit through four hours of stuff just for these magical moments. In the end, this film is a total disaster that only die-hard fans will enjoy. In fact, I'd bet most people couldn't get past the one hour mark with this thing, which is the reason this thing didn't stay in theaters over a week. The movie has been pulled by Dylan, which means the only way to see it are through bootlegs but who knows if Dylan will ever let the movie be released again. I'd certainly love to hear from him and what the film was trying to do but the closest we've come to this is an interview where Dylan said people should be stoned when they watch it.

Sadly, I didn't have any reefer handy when i viewed the film so I can't comment on how true that statement is. Again, this is a very special period in Dylan's career but this documentary/film doesn't touch upon its greatness. The Rolling Thunder Revue would run into early 1976 before ticket sales turned bad and the West Coast tour was canceled all together. Thankfully Columbia released "Live 1975" as part of their Genuine Bootleg Series, which is highly recommended. Also available is the original live CD "Hard Rain", which also produced a TV show and an alternate version, which hasn't been released outside of bootlegs. Was the above review useful to you? 1 out of 13 people found the following review useful: Bob Dylan from USA 31 October 1998 Renaldo And Clara was hit hard by critics, but was a true testimont that Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman) is the true modern leader of entertainment, and learder of social change. P.S. I would also like to find somewhere where I can buy this movie. Was the above review useful to you?

Movie Review - - 'Renaldo and Clara,' Film by Bob Dylan:Rolling Thunder - NYTimes.com 'Renaldo and Clara,' Film by Bob Dylan:Rolling Thunder By JANET MASLIN Published: January 26, 1978 THERE'S an insolence about "Renaldo and Clara," the four-hour film written and directed by Bob Dylan and featuring members of his Rolling Thunder Revue, that is not easily ignored. Mr. Dylan, who has a way of insinuating that any viewer who doesn't grasp the full richness of his work must be intellectually deficient or guilty of some failure of nerve, has seen fit to produce a film that no one is likely to find altogether comprehensible. Yet for anyone even marginally interested in Mr. Dylan—and for anyone willing to accept the idea that his evasiveness, however exasperating, is a crucial aspect of his finest work — "Renaldo and Clara" holds the attention at least as effectively as it tries the patience. No knowledge of Mr. Dylan or his history is supposed to be central to an understanding of the film, but it nevertheless trades heavily upon his past. The singer David Blue, playing himself, talks about the artistic climate of Greenwich Village when Mr.

Dylan first arrived there, and Joan Baez is rather coyly cast as Mr. Dylan's former lover. Mr. Dylan, even more coyly, is cast as someone other than himself, a very vague figure named Renaldo. As an actor, Mr. Dylan specializes in giving the simultaneous impressions that he isn't really interested in acting, and that he is always acting anyway. Renaldo is thus virtually useless as a character, but his alleged presence in the film does help call attention to Mr. Dylan's obsessive camouflaging of his feelings, a tendency that produces the film's only intelligible conceit. There are only two central characters in the film, a man and a woman, yet their identities are splintered and then parceled out to a dozen different actors. The woman is most frequently played by Sara Dylan, who is now Mr. Dylan's ex-wife, but aspects of her can also be seen in Miss Baez, Ronee Blakley and Helena Kallianiotes. Mr. Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins and Rob Stoner are among the actors who stand in for the man.

The two lovers, apparently about to become ex-lovers, are irremediably locked in battle, but the device of fluctuating identities prevents them from ever confronting each other face to face. This technique, not unlike one used by Robert Altman in "Images," is potentially an intriguing one, but Mr. Dylan's love of mystery prevails over his exhibitionism, with disappointing results. Most of the actors here seem to be playing either Mr. or Mrs. Dylan, and all of them slavishly do the director's bidding. But Mr. Dylan's instructiveness, to his actors and to his audience, is incomplete. "Renaldo and Clara" is so personal it borders on being obscure, yet it remains surprisingly deficient in personality. The figure who dominates the film is a man in hiding. Mr. Dylan has always been elusive; that's no mean part of his charm. But his best work, like the "Blood on the Tracks" album released a couple of years ago, has derived its momentum from alternating currents of passion and restraint, from conflicting impulses to repress and to reveal. "Renaldo and Clara" addresses this apparent contradiction so passively, even cold-bloodedly, that it seldom has the urgency it needs.

The film is full of connections to be made and riddles to be solved, but it approaches these things so dispassionately that the viewer has little choice but to follow suit. Even though Mr. Dylan makes it clear that he in no way wanted to make a concert film, the footage of him in performance provides not only the film's most electrifying moments but also its most emblematic ones. On the Rolling Thunder tour, Mr. Dylan performed in whiteface, and he is photographed here in tight closeup, singing so ferociously that his sweat melts the makeup; the film's sense of a person at war with a mask is never more riveting than when the camera studies Mr. Dylan's face as he sings. Every detail of these shots is resonant, from the fiery look in Mr. Dylan's eyes to the fresh flowers that someone has apparently been hired to tuck into his hatbrim, just before each show. The film contains more than its share of dead weight, but it is seldom genuinely dull.

On the credit side, there are a great many isolated images that have an independent vitality, from the sight of Joan Baez, looking unexpectedly dreamy in a white gown, to the spectacle of Allen Ginsberg, introduced as "without a doubt a very interesting and clever personality," reading his poetry to a bewildered band of middle-aged ladies. It's a pity that the editing of the film, which is credited to Mr. Dylan and Howard Alk, pays so little heed to consistency. Following a pattern of linear thought is clearly not one of the film's concerns, but maintaining a constant degree of intensity should have been; this way, by carelessly commingling very complex and suggestive episodes with very flat and simple ones, the editing continually throws an already befuddled viewer even further off balance. Interludes like the culminating meeting of Mr. Dylan, Mrs. Dylan and Miss Baez, at once quite rarefied and in an atmosphere that is amusingly mundane, and an exceedingly one-note segment devoted to Hurricane Carter, are so incompatible that they simply don't belong in the same movie. Rolling Thunder RENALDO AND CLARA, directed and written by Bob Dylan; edited by Mr.

Dylan and Howard Alk; photography by David Myers, Paul Goldsmith, Mr. Alk and Michael Levine; music by Mr. Dylan, Ronee Blakley, Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn and Jacques Levy, Allen Ginsberg and others; produced by Lombard Street Films; distributed by Circuit Films: At The Festival, 57th Street at Fifth Aveune; The New Yorker, Broadway and 88th Street and The Waverly, Third Street and Sixth Avenue, Theaters. Running time: 292 minutes. This film is rated R. Renaldo . . . . . Bob Dylan The Woman In White . . . . . Joan Baez Bob Dylan . . . . . Ronnie Hawkins Longheno de Castro . . . . . Jack Elliott Lafkezio . . . . . Harry Dean Stanton The Masked Tortilla . . . . . Bob Neuwirth Helena . . . . .

Helena Kallianiotes ‎Renaldo and Clara (1978) directed by Bob Dylan • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd Review by Joe 1 Hey so Bob, just saw the movie, loved it, loved it, just a couple notes or else they might fire me for not doing my job, ha ha. First thing first, do you think we could maybe lose the mask at the beginning? It's creepy and the kids in the focus group thought it made you look like a serial killer. Also we'd love to get something under the 90-minute mark into theaters for Christmas, love that concert footage! Hey, maybe just a concert movie could be good, like this but with just concert stuff, a few more songs, we could do a record. Alright, well, I don't want to take up any more of your time, I know you're busy. Loved the movie, loved it, loved what you're going for, happy to be a part of it.

Review by Timcop ★★★★½ Had to track down a stream for the finish as the last ten minutes crapped out at the private screening I attended, but mostly a big "wow" that something like this was ever attempted, much less by an ostensibly famous musician. Never not fascinating, with a host of interesting and unusual people floating in and out, with a lot of great interviews, while the occasional pseudo-narrative ranges from incomprehensible to irrationally hilarious. Dylan and Allen Ginsberg check out some graves, Harry Dean Stanton escapes from prison, David Blue plays pinball, Dylan plays what sounds like a ska version of "It Ain't Me Babe", Joan Baez plays multiple characters and covers Leonard Cohen, flashes of Joni Mitchell, Dylan dries his hands, and, in perhaps the movie's most memorable moment, a clearly acid-fueled Roger McGuinn sings a song that's apparently about fucking a horse. More caked on makeup than a KISS concert. Review by Not Pauline Kael Bob Dylan made this 3-hour-and-52-minute film, which was mostly shot during a Bicentennial (1975-76) tour.

(The show was called the "Rolling Thunder Revue.") The performance footage is handsomely photographed, but it doesn't build up the excitement that one can sometimes feel at a performance film, because the movie keeps cutting away from the stage to cinéma vérité fantasies of Dylan's life, which occupy more than two-thirds of the running time. Dylan has given himself more tight closeups than any actor can have had in the whole history of movies. see When the Lights Go Down. Review by Edward Vincent ★★ @ Alamo Ritz This was a challenge to sit through. I did it for my mom, who is a massive Dylan fan. I was surprised that she knew what the ‘Bob Dylan Mystery Epic’ was going to be before it started. It was still hard to watch for a few reasons. Poor quality visuals-both the original photography was somewhat poor, and then the only way left to watch it is this bootleg VHS from European television. The concert footage was alright though, if kinda weird, what with the facepaint and masks and stuff. Interesting documentary footage with The Hurricane and stuff. Makes me want to watch I’m Not There all the way through. Ultimately didn’t see the ending due to technical difficulties with the projector.

First time visiting the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz, in Austin, Texas. Review by Joe 1 Hey so Bob, just saw the movie, loved it, loved it, just a couple notes or else they might fire me for not doing my job, ha ha. First thing first, do you think we could maybe lose the mask at the beginning? It's creepy and the kids in the focus group thought it made you look like a serial killer. Also we'd love to get something under the 90-minute mark into theaters for Christmas, love that concert footage! Hey, maybe just a concert movie could be good, like this but with just concert stuff, a few more songs, we could do a record. Alright, well, I don't want to take up any more of your time, I know you're busy. Loved the movie, loved it, loved what you're going for, happy to be a part of it. Review by Timcop ★★★★½ Had to track down a stream for the finish as the last ten minutes crapped out at the private screening I attended, but mostly a big "wow" that something like this was ever attempted, much less by an ostensibly famous musician.

Never not fascinating, with a host of interesting and unusual people floating in and out, with a lot of great interviews, while the occasional pseudo-narrative ranges from incomprehensible to irrationally hilarious. Dylan and Allen Ginsberg check out some graves, Harry Dean Stanton escapes from prison, David Blue plays pinball, Dylan plays what sounds like a ska version of "It Ain't Me Babe", Joan Baez plays multiple characters and covers Leonard Cohen, flashes of Joni Mitchell, Dylan dries his hands, and, in perhaps the movie's most memorable moment, a clearly acid-fueled Roger McGuinn sings a song that's apparently about fucking a horse. More caked on makeup than a KISS concert. notcoming.com | Renaldo and Clara Renaldo and Clara Posted on 13 December 2010 Source Bootleg DVD Categories Rock Follies “About a third is improvised, about a third is determined, and about a third is blind luck,” Bob Dylan told an interviewer in 1978.

1 He was referring to his much-maligned, rarely seen four-hour opus Renaldo & Clara, released theatrically ever so briefly that year, but the quote could easily be applied to Dylan’s career as a whole. The singer-songwriter has relied on a blend of devil-may-care attitude, genuine artistic brilliance and simple twists of fate to create some of the most fascinating music of the past 50 years. But the strategy, when applied to filmmaking, has mostly misfired. Perhaps not coincidentally, the most successful cinematic representation of Dylan is a film that the songwriter did not have creative control over. Don’t Look Back , D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary of Dylan’s 1965 UK tour, captures the then-solo acoustic troubadour poised on the precipice of rock superstardom and almost unheard of cultural currency. But beyond the historic aspects of Pennebaker’s film, Don’t Look Back works surprisingly well as a compelling drama. Using real life situations and people (with the charismatic Dylan center stage), the filmmaker constructs a narrative that feels as cohesive and complete as any great fictional work.

Don’t Look Back isn’t just one of the best movies about music in the 1960s, it’s one of the best movies of the 1960s. Dylan, however, disliked Pennebaker’s film. He grudgingly hired the documentarian again for his candle-burning-at-both-ends 1966 European tour with the Hawks (later to be known as The Band), but rejected the rough edit Pennebaker subsequently delivered. Working in tandem with cameraman/editor Howard Alk, Dylan then used Pennebaker’s footage to make Eat The Document , a disjointed, hallucinatory anti-documentary that – despite some gripping live performances – is mostly an incomprehensible mess. If Don’t Look Back made the audience the proverbial fly on Dylan’s wall, Eat The Document sends that same fly buzzing madly through Dylan’s amphetamine riddled psyche. 2 All of which brings us to Renaldo & Clara, made a decade later, again in collaboration with Howard Alk and again using raw tour footage to illustrate the shadowy recesses of Dylan’s mind.

The tour in question this time was the Rolling Thunder Revue of late 1975, which saw Dylan taking a motley crew of musicians (including Roger McGuinn, Ronee Blakely, Joan Baez, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bob Neuwirth, T-Bone Burnet, and Joni Mitchell) on a trip through the northeastern United States and Canada. Much of the non-musical documentary material in Renaldo & Clara is devoted to demystifying the rock tour experience, using techniques that anticipate (and perhaps influenced) later films like Radiohead’s Meeting People Is Easy and Wilco’s I Am Trying to Break Your Heart : the audience is treated to long sequences of roadies setting up equipment in empty arenas, awkward media meet ‘n’ greets, stoned rap sessions with fans and groupies, and interminably long train and car rides. It’s all pretty boring – which is probably the point. Thankfully, though, these dull moments are sharply contrasted by the performance footage.

As evidenced by the two-CD set Live 1975 (released in 2002) and various bootlegs, the tour was hugely successful on a musical level, with Dylan playing an inspired batch of new songs (later to turn up in somewhat inferior forms on Desire), along with reinvented, impassioned versions of older tunes. Thus we get Dylan and his band in full flight, tearing through “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (re-imagined as a smoking electric blues number), a fierce “Isis,” and a biting “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” Dylan, normally a reserved performer, appears positively possessed in these clips, gesticulating wildly (often sans guitar) and snapping out lyrics with an authority unseen since the glory days of 1966. The band is fascinating as well, blending the glammy guitar of Mick Ronson (better known as one David Bowie’s Spiders from Mars) with the gypsy violin of Scarlet Riviera and country-fried licks of multi-instrumentalist David Mansfield. If Dylan had released a straightforward visual showcase of this band, we might be speaking of Renaldo & Clara as one of the great concert films of the rock era.

Alas, the elements described above take up just about an hour of Renaldo & Clara’s running time – the film isn’t called The Rolling Thunder Revue, after all. No, much of Renaldo & Clara is devoted to semi-improvised dramatic scenes that suggest an unholy collaboration between Sam Peckinpah and John Cassavetes. (That description that might whet the appetites of cinephiles, but trust me, it’s nowhere near that good.) These barely-written, clumsily edited scenes, mainly featuring Dylan’s then-wife Sara, playwright/actor Sam Shepard, Joan Baez and Dylan himself, are made of the flimsiest of materials, and it shows. The actors (or, in most cases, non-actors) don’t seem to have been given much in the way of guidance, and they painfully grope for something, anything, that might lead to a meaningful exchange. “I need you,” Shepard tells Sara Dylan at one point. “Need me for what?” she asks. “I need you to perform certain magical things with me, that’s all,” Shepard responds. It’s a fairly typical moment.

The “plot” at hand appears to involve some kind of love quadrangle between the four principals – with Harry Dean Stanton poking up here and there – but it would take a hardier Dylanologist than I to sort through the oblique mixture of autobiography, fantasy and symbolism present here. 3 It’s clear that Dylan had only the vaguest notions of what Renaldo & Clara would be during shooting, and pasted the film together during the editing process. Not necessarily a terrible way to make a movie, but one wishes it didn’t feel like such a slog. How to approach Renaldo & Clara, then? Mostly, I didn’t attempt to analyze the film to any great degree; I just tried to soak in the singularly strange atmosphere. And what could be stranger than Dylan selling Baez to Dean Stanton for a horse? Or Allen Ginsberg attempting to woo a trio of hookers with a poem? There is one particularly good, brief scene between Dylan and Baez, displaying a chemistry between the pair that never quite comes across in their onstage duets. But like I said, it’s brief. Perhaps most frustrating is Dylan himself, who, aside from the performance footage, remains on the fringes of the film.

When he does appear – as Renaldo, the end credits tell us – he’s an almost laughably limp presence. If anyone asks him a question, he responds, “I don’t know,” or “You tell me,” or simply with a stony silence. The passive nature of his character is curious, considering his auteur status behind the camera. Maybe Dylan knew that every moment of the film would be infused with his powerful persona, regardless of whether he dominated the screen. Maybe he’s just not a very good actor. The critics pounced on Renaldo & Clara, but Dylan himself may have realized the fundamental shortcomings of his cinematic creation. Shortly after the film was released, he pulled it from distribution and allowed only a handful of subsequent screenings on European television in the 1980s. It remains unavailable on DVD (or any other format) to this day. His next stab at cinema, Masked & Anonymous, wouldn’t arrive for another two decades. But that’s a Rock Folly for another day. “Bob Dylan: The Rolling Stone Interview,” by Jonathan Cott, Rolling Stone, Jan. 26, 1978.

↩ Though Pennebaker’s edit of the 1966 tour footage, Something Is Happening Here, remains unseen, a more linear depiction of this period utilizing his footage can be seen in Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home documentary from 2005. ↩ And I consider myself to be a pretty hardy Dylanologist! ↩ Renaldo and Clara Rob Stoner -- bass, backup vocals, musical director. Plays Gene Vincent in some scenes. Steven Soles -- rhythm guitar. Plays Ronee Blakely's abusive boyfriend. Scarlet Rivera -- electric violin, also prominently featured on the "Desire" album. Bob Neuwirth -- rhythm guitar, plays "The Masked Tortilla" and reads some poetry in scenes. Roger McGuinn -- twelve-string guitar. Formerly of the Byrds. Mick Ronson -- flashy lead guitar, from David Bowie's band. Plays a backstage bouncer in one scene. David Mansfield -- various instruments including electric violin and pedal steel guitar. Boyish face. Plays an angel in his underwear in the bordello scenes. T-Bone Burnette -- backup guitar, keyboards. Howie Wyeth -- Drums.

And now, scene by scene, here's the film ... 1 Bob Dylan and Bob Neuwirth are on stage singing "When I Paint My Masterpiece" as the titles roll. Dylan is wearing a rubber mask that gives him an other- worldly appearance. The rest of the band is not yet seen, just Dylan and Neuwirth (Neuwirth, for those who don't know, is a longtime Dylan companion and fellow Greenwich Village folksinger-hipster). 2 A crowd of people in a dark room are discussing tour logistics and hotel arrangements. Roger McGuinn's face is visible among them. 3 David Blue (another G. Village early 60's folksinger) is playing pinball next to a swimming pool and telling the camera about his first trip to New York -- he swiped money from his father's wallet, took a bus to 42nd Street and then went right back home. He talks about old Village figures like John Brent and Hugh Romney, and about how they used to pass the hat after reading poetry. (Blue will continue telling stories while playing pinball throughout the movie.) 4 Dylan is in a garage idly playing an acoustic guitar with a dark-haired woman by his side.

A mechanic asks "Why are you in such a hurry?" Apparently Dylan is trading a T-bird for a cheap motorcycle. The mechanic asks "Are you running from the law?" and Dylan says "I am the law." This is Dylan in his Renaldo persona. 5 Bob Neuwirth, in a mask, is on stage in a small club reading a poem written by a badly disabled black guy named Tony Curtis who sits watching. At the end of the poem Tony Curtis asks for money (asking for money for poems or songs will be a recurring motif in the film.) Phil Ochs (I think!) comes on stage, takes a guitar and plays a chord. 6 Record executives talk in a conference room. (More of this later.) 7 The dark-haired woman (DHW) from the fourth scene is running up a set of stairs. Scarlet Rivera, is playing violin backstage and pauses to tune with Dylan. In the background, a Dylan version of the Hank Williams song "Kaw-Liga" plays. We see a truck labeled "Hemingway" with an Indian head on the side. As the song continues to play, a disk jockey announces that the Rolling Thunder Revue with Bob Dylan is coming to town.

NOTE: there are three Indian images here -- the song "Kaw-Liga", the Indian head on the truck, and the name "Rolling Thunder" (which is the name of a famous train, but is also the name of a famous Indian chief who we will hear more of later in the film.) 8 Sara Dylan (Bob's wife) and DHW are in a restaurant. The DHW needs a ride to Vermont and is picked up by a stranger who overhears them talking. It seems that Sara already has a ride (that is, a lover) but that the DHW doesn't. NOTE: Sara will later put on a wig and play Clara -- without a wig I will refer to her as Sara. 9 Dylan and the Rolling Thunder Revue on stage performing "Isis". This is the excellent version from Biograph. The sound is full, rich and chaotic (there are five guitars!) and fits very well the image of rolling thunder. NOTE: The live cuts tend to echo the drama. The song "Isis" (on Biograph he precedes it with 'This is a song about marriage') is connected to Sara's first appearance in the film.

Dylan wears white makeup covering his face, as he does in all subsequent concert scenes. 10 Sara picks up a rose. (This rose will continue to appear in the film.) 11 A Hollywood-style woman announcer in a fur wrap is at a microphone waiting to announce the appearance of Bob Dylan. She mistakes the first person to approach her for Bob Dylan, so she obviously has no idea who Dylan is. He tells her he's not Dylan, "Dylan is wearing a hat". Ronnie Hawkins (the blues singer who originally worked with the Band) turns up, and he's wearing a hat. The woman asks if he's Bob Dylan and he says he is. Since Ronnie Hawkins is a big bruiser with a deep voice and a thick beard, the effect of this is rather funny. The woman asks him to explain who Bob Dylan is and Hawkins says solemnly, "A hero of the highest order". NOTE: in the final credits, Ronnie Hawkins is listed as playing Bob Dylan (while Bob Dylan is listed as playing Renaldo). 12 Ronnie Hawkins (as Bob Dylan) is propositioning a young brunette to join him on tour.

He lays it out straight for her -- she's a very lovely young lady and he'll give her a good time, no strings attached. Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" begins to play in the background. Hawkins/Dylan tells her, rather ominously, "You'll come back a much wiser young lady." She is hesitant; she wants to stay on the farm (though she looks nothing like a farm girl -- cf. Dylan's song "Sooner or Later": '... you weren't really from the farm'.) She wants to ask her father for permission, also recalling the Dylan song "Motorpsycho Nitemare", about a farmer and his daughter. Hawkins/Dylan and the girl begin debating about whether the world will soon end; Hawkins/Dylan says "the world's going to explode", hoping to entice her to join him. This (the world ending, apocalypse) will be another recurring motif in the film. 13 A group of evangelists are preaching about God and the world ending in front of Federal Plaza on Wall Street. The New York Stock Exchange is visible behind them. A riled-up crowd is listening, some heckling the evangelists.

This appears to be live footage, not a staged scene. 14 A group of people are talking in a diner. This group will appear again at various times. It is not clear what they are talking about. 15 We hear Dylan's "Ballad in Plain D", his painful song about his breakup with Suze Rotolo, his first serious girlfriend, from the early 60's. Someone other than Dylan is singing (and the song sounds much better than on "Another Side"). We see Dylan as Renaldo walking on the streets of a small city. He goes into a restaurant, checks out another brunette (almost all the woman in this film are brunettes), and talks to a man about something involving a woman. They seem to be transacting some kind of serious business, but it's not clear what kind. 16 Sara Dylan and Sam Shepard (listed in the credits as "Rodeo") are leaving a restaurant and discussing something. They appear to be husband and wife, and seem to be having a mild argument. 17 Shots of Jesus statues (we will later see that these shots are from Jack Kerouac 's graveyard in Lowell ). A song plays: "Girl, tell me where you been last night".

I think this is Leadbelly, the same song Nirvana closed their "Unplugged" show with. We see birds flying above, echoing the last line of "Ballad in Plain D" ('are birds free from the chains of the skyway?'). 18 David Blue playing pinball. He tells about the night at Gerde's Folk City when Gil Turner heard Dylan's new "Blowin' in the Wind" and sang it onstage for the first time. 19 Back at the restuarant from scene 15 above, a stripper or belly dancer is writhing on the floor. 20 Ronnie Hawkins/Dylan is trying to get into the restaurant, but Mick Ronson playing a (rather skinny) bouncer, refuses to let him in. (NOTE: there will be no Academy Award in store for Mick Ronson). 21 The scene in the restaurant has begun to metamorphosize; the belly dancer is now dancing to "Hava Negila", a lounge singer belts out "Welcome" from "Cabaret", and we see that the audience is now full of old ladies. 22 The evangelists on Wall Street.

One of them uses the phrase "Senators, congressman", which echoes "Times A-Changin'", although this seems to be a lucky coincidence -- the scene still appears to be really happening, not rehearsed. One of the evangelists gets into a scuffle with a heckler. 23 Dylan and the band playing "Hard Rain". This is an excellent but grungy version of the song likely to offend purists who are fond of the original acoustic version. Ronson's screaming guitar and Rob Stoner's sturdy bass gives the song an almost jaunty feeling. 24 The crowd in the diner again. One of the crowd is in a hat and glasses and someone comments that he looks and talks like Leonard Cohen. (Is he Leonard Cohen in disguise? I don't know. I can't see any other reason why Dylan would include these mostly uninteresting diner scenes.) 25 Sara walks slinkily through a train station. This may indicate that she has left her 'husband', Sam Shepard. 26 Back at the restaurant, it is now clearly some kind of Senior Citizen's home. (This sort of neat transformation is a trademark of this film, and is clearly part of the 'cubist' method).

The lounge singer brings Allen Ginsberg on stage for a poetry reading. 27 David Blue still playing pinball. He talks about Ginsberg and Kerouac and the influences the Beats had on the G. Village folk scene. He mentions a banjo player named Luke who used to play at the Gaslight. 28 We are at an Indian reservation. We will later learn that one of the Indians present wrote a book about the famous Indian named "Rolling Thunder". 29 Ramblin' Jack Elliot is singing a song (I don't know the title). 40 The crowd at the diner again. 41 Ramblin' Jack Elliot is now singing a yodeling blues that sounds like the end of Dylan's "Talking Hava-Negila Blues". He introduces the Woody Guthrie song "Pretty Boy Floyd", mentioning that Pretty Boy Floyd travelled cross country in a car. This segues to: 42 A girl is asking all the musicians how they travel (in a bus). Allen Ginsberg offers to teach her how to meditate and she consents.

Then the whole crowd of musicians is suddenly doing a loud group chant, led by Ginsberg, while Mick Ronson and Roger McGuinn provide a "doo-wah diddy" counterpoint. This goes on for a while, and some start dancing around the circle. Dylan, though, seems detached, and walks away. 43 David Blue is playing pinball, but this time does not speak. 44 Evangelists on Wall Street sing "What will you do when Jesus comes?" At mention of Jesus, Dylan (naturally) appears. He exits a bus (see 41), runs across a street and stands on a corner as if waiting for something. We hear Anne Waldman reading her poem "Fast-Speaking Woman" ("I'm the Buddha woman, I'm the fast speaking woman, I'm the trumpet woman, I'm the vagabond woman," etc.) 45 Sara is seen with a white hat or scarf rolled tightly around her head. This is the first appearance of the Woman In White, who will later be played by Joan Baez. 46 Rob Stoner dressed as Gene Vincent walks out onto an empty stage. 70 Dylan and the band play "One More Cup Of Coffee".

Intercut to another brunette holding a rose. 71 Dylan gets his palm read in a hotel, with others around. 72 Back in the Senior Citizen's center from Part I, Allen Ginsberg is reading from " Kaddish ", his painful poem (he considers it his best work) about his mother's horrific descent into insanity. At his mention of "the long black beard around your vagina", we cut to the old Gypsy lady, now a mother figure, gently massaging Ginsberg's forehead as if healing him of his pain. This bit of editing -- having the Gypsy heal Ginsberg from the events of "Kaddish" -- is one of the more touching moments in the film. She slaps his forehead, perhaps a Gypsy practice, and Ginsberg smiles appreciatively, as a slap on the head is also significant for Zen Buddhists. She then says "He's a nice man", but says he's too careless with money. 73 Dylan and Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac's grave in Lowell. They discuss graves they've each seen.

Cut to the spy from the train (the fat dude with glasses and an earring), who now walks through the hotel with a lantern (actually movie lights) like a death figure while Ginsberg chants "the skull is ugly". We then see Ginsberg's beard getting shaved off. 74 McGuinn leads the band in a rockin' instrumental version of "8 Miles High". Joan Baez comes on stage and goes into a wild dance. She's a surprisingly good dancer for a folksinger. McGuinn then begins singing "Chestnut Mare." 75 We now see Renaldo and Clara (Sara in Sophia Loren wig) together for the first time. He is playing guitar and she's all over him. We also see scenes of the bordello, though Renaldo and Clara are no longer there. 76 The Woman In White (WIW), now and for the remainder of the film Joan Baez, arrives in her carriage and walks upstairs to where Renaldo and Clara are making out. She confronts them, looking like a woman scorned. Clara says "Who's she?" 77 Folks still talking in the diner.

86 Dylan on stage sings a solo "Tangled Up In Blue" -- one of the versions with transposed pronouns. This song, like this film, presents identities that merge into each other. Ultimately you are not meant to sort out who is who, as in Picasso's cubist paintings. 87 Dylan and Ginsberg in a playground near cemetery in Lowell. Ginsberg asks children what God looks like, confusing them with questions. 88 A studio dance scene with Baez (I think) and Ginsberg and two others. Piano music is playing. Ginsberg dances with surprising grace given his physique. The music turns to a rock beat and the dance goes on. 89 Dylan and band members in a men's room in a train station. They talk to another woman (guess what color her hair is?) 90 Rob Stoner, in a hotel lobby, tells the camera he doesn't remember his dreams. 91 Dylan and band on stage sing "Just Like A Woman" with a cowboy-hatted Ronee Blakely singing harmonies. After the song they pause (the only onstage segue in the film) and go into "Knocking on Heaven's Door".

Scarlet Rivera wears black widow makeup on her face. Roger McGuinn sings harmony. 92 The next-to-last scene has Dylan walking offstage into a room marked "PRIVATE". We see Joan Baez talking to a group of people and then see Dylan alone, lying on the floor of his dressing room with his guitar next to him, apparently exhausted. 93 Finally, an unidentified black lounge singer is singing an incredibly corny song about "castles in the shifting sands, in a world that no-one understands, 'tis the morning of my life." The final credits roll.

Question: Who made the film Renaldo and Clara with Bob Dylan?
Answer: Joan Baez